The Dance
by merdarkandtwisty
Summary: Every night he preforms the dance he's perfected. the dance of Hell. the one that allows him to pretend for just a moment that all is once again okay.


Prompt: You can't keep kissing strangers and pretending that it's him

I don't own criminal minds

The alcohol burned down his throat. The same way it always did. The lights were dim, the man across from him smiled and he downed the rest of the whiskey and slid off the stool. He made his way across the bar room.

He slipped into the unoccupied seat, he smiled as the waitress brought him another drink, lifting it to his lips he smirked before taking a drink and letting that familiar burn run down his throat once again.

It was a familiar dance. One he did night after night. He could almost do it in his sleep. If he actually slept that was, but when he closed his eyes he saw his face. He heard his voice. So he kept his eyes open and he let the whisky burn down his throat and he smiled seductively over at the man sitting beside him.

"So I haven't seen you in here before." He purred.

"Came with some friends." The other man said downing his own drink of choice.

"mmm well I don't see your friends around here now so how about we get out of here. Go back to my place." He licked his lips tasting the whiskey once again against his tongue.

"Sounds like a plan." The other man said standing up and putting his glass down tossing some bills on the table.

Spencer mirrored his actions before leaning over and capturing the other man's lips in his own. If he closed his eyes for just a moment he could pretend. That's why he did this dance night after night right. To see him. Feel him be with him again.

"Some one's eager." The strange man chuckled against his lips and Spencer's eyes popped open and he pulled back. The illusion ruined when the other man talked.

"Shh." He whispered placing his finger against the other man's lips. "No talking"

He pulled the other man. This stranger out into the biting DC cold before briskly walking towards his building. He got to the outside before pushing the man against the wall claiming his lips again. Falling again into his fantasy into the past.

Five years gone. Five years since it all went to hell. Five years since he lost everything that ever mattered. He kissed and he pulled back and he left his eyes unfocused because if he did he could pretend and he went in the building the other man's hand in his and he lead him up to his apartment. It was all part of the dance. The dance he'd perfected.

Stripped to his skin the other man also and they fell into the bed. Whisky soaked breath against whatever the other had drank. Body to body. Kisses that meant nothing in one sense and everything in another. Eyes closed. Fingers tangled in hair to long but he'd pretend it wasn't so because he always pretended night after night. He'd bring them here get them into bed and pretend. Then in the morning he'd kick them out without a backward glance or a twinge of guilt and he'd do it all over the next night. It was dangerous he knew that but he couldn't bring himself to care.

He pressed his lips together unwilling to let the name he wanted to say slip past his lips. He was a bastard. Time and circumstance had made him such but he wasn't that big of one to let the men know that they were just a poor substitute. They would never live up to the original, never could. He fell into bed with them. Let them have his body, they could never have his heart or more than one night. He wouldn't allow it couldn't allow it because it killed the delusion the fantasy whatever the hell you wanted to call it. He fell next to the man, the man whose name he didn't even know. Who name he never cared to know.

The next morning Spencer woke up and ignored the body next to him he got up got dressed left a note that said in no uncertain terms that he expected the stranger to be gone when he got home. He'd get home the man would be gone and he'd start it all again. The dance. The dance of Hell.

Derek shook his head when Spencer came into the bull Pen. He saw the pity in the older man's eyes and wanted to lash out at it but didn't. His friends knew what he did in the dark of the night but he didn't care, he didn't care what they thought, he didn't care about anything. Nothing but pretending and the dance.

That day as he left the office Derek stopped him. Gestured towards his office. The office that used to be Aaron's and Spencer stilled. His heart stopped. He avoided that place at all cost but now Derek was making him go in there. No this wasn't right. This wasn't part of the fantasy this wasn't part of the dance.

With lead legs he followed Derek up to the office that held so much pain, so many memories and he waited a mask on as Derek closed the door and turned to him taking his spot behind the desk. the spot that used to be Aaron's and motioning for Spencer to take the spot opposite which he did with gritted teeth and silent protest.

Derek looked at his best friend. A shadow of the man he'd been five years ago. A shadow of the man he'd been before Foyet had killed Haley and Jack and then Aaron. Killed of them before being taken out by the one who know one would have suspected. Aaron had died at Foyet's hand but Foyet had died at Spencer's.

It was like staring into nothingness as he looked At Spencer. The man was alive but he wasn't present he did his job no different than he had five years ago, yet there was no joy no life to him. it killed Derek to see his friend like this. So lifeless so broken. He grabbed the whisky from his bottom drawer and he poured a glass sliding it across the desk to Spencer.

"Drink." He nodded towards the glass and Spencer took it his hands steady on the outside but shaking on the inside and he drank. The taste making him think of the dance, yet this wasn't the dance and he resented it.

"Spencer"

"What," and it wasn't quite a snap but it was close and Derek could feel the cold fury in them.

"Spencer." Derek tried again taking a drink of his own and fortifying himself. "You can't keep kissing strangers and pretending that it's him."

Spencer laughed humorlessly. "Oh I do a lot more then kiss them." Drained the rest of his drink and slammed it down on the desk. "Now if we're finished here I have things to do." He walked out of the room back to the dance and Derek watched him go, wanting to shake him wanting to bring life back into him.

Spencer didn't care though because Aaron was dead, Jack was dead and he had nothing to live for so night after night no matter what his friends said. No matter the letters his mother wrote him he performed the dance and pretended for a moment in time that Aaron was alive, whole in his arms again.


End file.
